Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s) - photo 1
Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s) - photo 2
Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s) - photo 3
Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s) - photo 4
Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s) - photo 5

Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s)

Lot 18
12.07.2023 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 13 860
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 993364
Lot 18 | Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Master of the Ghent Gradual (active c.1460s-70s)

A Young Woman Dining, and at Mass, two miniatures on four leaves probably from a Primer, illuminated manuscript on vellum [southern Netherlands, Bruges, c.1460s-70s]

A survival from a very rare type of book: a Primer for a young girl, depicted in the miniatures. Once in the collection of the famous English bibliophile Sir Thomas Phillipps.



175 x 130mm., 4 leaves (2 bifolia), with two rectangular miniatures, each above three lines of text and a three-line foliate initial, surrounded by a full foliate border incorporating an angel, bird, etc., 8 lines of text, ruled space: 87 x 68mm., 3 illuminated initials, line-endings, the pages without miniatures with partial borders (the bifolia loose within the binding, a little rubbed, cockled and darkened). Binding of reddish-brown morocco with marbled pastedowns and spine-title ‘Illuminations’ in gilt capitals, by George Bretherton, with his ticket ‘Bretherton ligavit, 1848’ (edges a little scuffed).



Provenance:

(1) Presumably made for the young girl wearing a red and gold dress, attended by a woman in black, depicted in each of the miniatures: her hair is uncovered at Mass and loose under her headdress at the table.



(2) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872): his MS 18276 (see spine label), acquired in or before 1848 (the binding is by Phillipps’s long-suffering printer and binder George Bretherton: he started work for Phillipps in that year, but ran away in 1851, having found it impossible to support his family on the wages paid by Phillipps), the spine with a typical Phillipps paper label printed with the number ‘18276’); the final flyleaf inscribed in pencil ‘MHC’ (Middle Hill Catalogue); noted by Paul Durrieu, ‘Les manuscrits à peintures de la bibliothèque de Sir Thomas Phillipps à Cheltenham’, Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes, 50 (1889), 381–432, no. XLIV at p. 399. Our four leaves were bound with four others at the 1947 Phillipps sale at Sotheby's: Bibliotheca Phillippica, Catalogue of a Further Portion of the Renowned Library formed by the later Sir Thomas Phillipps [...], 1 December 1947, lot 76.



(3) Unidentified English bookseller: the final flyleaf inscribed in pencil ‘Each miniature £55/–’.



Content:

This is probably a portion of a very rare type of book: a Primer for a child or young person, as suggested by the very large, clear script, and the selection of texts. The surviving prayers are (in the order of the 19th-century foliation):

f.4r: ‘Anime omnium fidelium defunctorum […] Amen’, the end of a prayer for the dead, commonly found at the end of the Commendation of Souls.

f.4v: ‘Ave salus mundi […]’, a prayer to be said following the Elevation of the Host at Mass.

f.9r–v: ‘consensu risu visu verbo et opere […] Amen.’, the end of a Confession which typically begins ‘Confiteor deo omnipotenti […]’.

f.11r–v: ‘Benedicite dominus nos […] Amen’, a grace to be said before meals.

f.12r: ‘et calicis mei […] hereditatem meam michi’, Psalm 15:5 (a verse said at mass on Sundays throughout the year); the verso blank, perhaps the final page of the original volume.



A well-known image of a woman teaching other young women in a Flemish prayerbook of c.1440 (London, BL, Harley MS 3828) is immediately followed by an alphabet and the following series of prayers: Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Credo, Magnificat, Nunc dimittis, Ave salus mundi, and Benedicite dominus nos. Similarly, a Primer in Oxford (Bodleian Library, MS. Rawl. E. 40) contains an alphabet, followed by the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, Credo, Benedicite dominus, Confiteor deo omnipotenti, and Ave salus mundi. It seems probable that the present leaves come from a book containing a similar selection of prayers that a child should learn.



Illumination:

The miniatures are the work of the Master of the Ghent Gradual, an artist once conflated with the Master of the Ghent Priviliges, but renamed by Gregory Clark after a Gradual made for Jacob van Brussel (d.1474), abbot of St Bavo's in Ghent, sometime before 1469, Ghent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Ms.14 (see G. Clark, Made in Flanders, The Master of the Ghent Privileges and manuscript painting in the Southern Netherlands in the time of Philip the Good, 2000, pp.39-52). He was responsible for the illumination of a Book of Hours now at the British Library (Stowe 23); the Kornfeld Hours (G. Clark, Made in Flanders, 2000, pls.190-203); and, most pertinently, the miniatures opening the books of a printed French Valerius Maximus (the most ambitiously decorative of which is Manchester, John Rylands University Library, Inc. 26 A.4 [Inc. 5676, vol.2]). The Master emerges from an older, Parisian tradition of manuscript illumination promoted by the Master of Guillebert de Metz: we see this in the textures and elongated figures in our manuscript, which, like the borders, are are particularly close to the decoration of the Rylands incunable (see Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, no 67).



The two large miniatures depict:

f.4v. Preceding the Mass prayer: A girl or young lay woman kneeling with an open book, attended by the black-clad woman, watching a priest at an altar elevating the host above his head, attended by an acolyte.

f.11r. Preceding the Grace: The same young woman seated alone at a table, her attendant standing behind with folded arms resting on the seat-back, approached by a male server pouring wine(?) into a dish, a sideboard ostentatiously laden with gold and silver vessels and platters.





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